Recasting Mad Men

March 26, 2012

It came to me in a dream: A final exam of some kind, where the only question was to recast Mad Men as if it were produced during the time period (the early sixties) in which the show is set.

Most dream-ideas seem kinda stupid when you wake up – but I thought this one was pretty cool. Especially since I aced that dream-exam. My subconscious remembered a whole lot of the characters by name (even Freddy Rumsen!) and came up with some good actors to match. When I woke up, I added some conscious choices to fill out the list. Take a look, imagine some Mad Men moments with these actors playing them, and see what you think . . . .

Ben Gazzara as Don Draper (Jon Hamm)

Gena Rowlands as Betty Draper (January Jones)

Gig Young as Roger Sterling (John Slattery)

Collin Wilcox as Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss)

James Franciscus as Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser)

Tina Louise as Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks)

William Daniels as Sal Romano (Bryan Batt)

Robert Morse as Harry Crane (Rich Sommer)

Linden Chiles as Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis)

Roger Perry as Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton)

Patrick O’Neal as Duck Phillips (Mark Moses)

Roddy McDowall as Lane Pryce (Jared Harris)

Tim O’Connor as Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley)

John McGiver as Bert Cooper (Robert Morse)

Martin Balsam as Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray)

Susan Oliver as Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt)

Bethel Leslie as Anna Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton)

Lee Grant as Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff)

Suzanne Pleshette as Trudy Campbell (Alison Brie)

Joyce Van Patten as Mona Sterling (Talia Balsam)

Claire Griswold as Jane Siegel (Peyton List)

Robert Culp as Archie Whitman (Joseph Culp)

Ruth McDevitt as Miss Blankenship (Randee Heller)

Shelley Berman as Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler)

Pat Hingle as Conrad Hilton (Chelcie Ross)

You’ll notice that I’ve fudged the issue of whether our hypothetical Mad Men was filmed in New York or Los Angeles, a critical issue that would have influenced casting in the early sixties. Gazzara and Rowlands – my pairing an indulgence in Cassavetesphilia; Cassavetes himself would have been a profound, if angry, Don Draper – were bicoastal, but probably more New York-centric in 1960; the ideal Los Angeles teaming might have been David Janssen and Inger Stevens as Don and Betty.

Having been immersed lately in the world of Marion Dougherty, the visionary New York-based casting director who discovered so many future stars on the Off-Broadway stage, I can picture a Mad Men cast by Dougherty and starring Gene Hackman as Don, Sandy Dennis as Betty, Robert Redford as Pete, Robert Duvall as Roger, Dustin Hoffman as Paul, Martin Sheen as Harry, James Caan as Ken, Robert Loggia as Sal, and Walter Matthau as Duck. All of them were working on television and on Marion’s radar by 1961, at the latest; so it’s legit but still too much of a cheat, even for funsies.

Now it’s your turn to kibitz. Come up with your own list, or “cast” even more of the minor characters than I did. But I’m gonna be real strict about this. Anyone you pick has to have been a viable candidate for a regular or recurring role on an American television series during the early sixties. Do not annoy me by naming movie stars who didn’t do television during that time, or actors who died in 1958 or debuted in 1970, or actors who were unavailable because they were already starring in some other series for most of the time between 1960 and 1965. (Sorry, you can’t have James Arness as Don Draper.)

Ed Robertson couldn’t see Gazzara as Don Draper, either. But I think he’s one of the only leading men of that moment who has the same air of mystery as Jon Hamm. He seems like a guy with secrets, and he’s reserved in a way that exudes power.

George C. Scott would’ve been a fascinating Don Draper, too — obviously more angry and expressive than Jon Hamm, but full of the same contempt/impatience for everything around him that Draper has. And Scott (again, unlike most of his contemporaries) was, on the screen, really good at seducing women on screen (a key Draper attribute) — he always seemed really interested in them, rather than just macho and entitled.

Yeah, some good work there; I can see most of those. I had thought of Nielsen as the kind of leading man who could play Don — he had the authority. But, you know, Robert Lansing is really perhaps a better choice — he had that icy quality, and his characters never seemed to be at peace with themselves.

Great choice on your list with Tina Louise as Joan. I tried to think of another early 1960’s sex kitten for that role, but the only one I could think of was Joanna Moore. I just don’t think she’s a very good actress, though.

Hi, Tom! Glad you thought this was fun, too. You can say who you don’t like among my lineup if you want to!

I can see most of these, too. Diane McBain and Sal Mineo are great, although putting Mineo opposite the closeted Tom Tryon creates an interesting … subtext! Janet Margolin actually would’ve been a good Peggy. Not too many leading ladies who could play “plain” from that period, and very few young male actors of prominence who were both smug and doughy like Rich Sommer and, uh, the other guy whose name I always forget.

The other person nobody’s mentioned, to my surprise, is Robert Webber — the quintessential Mad Men type after playing one to hilarious perfection in 12 Angry Men. I kind of crossed him off as too obvious but I would’ve enjoyed seeing him play Don, or Roger, or even Sal (remember how effectively Webber played gay later on for Blake Edwards).

Wow, that is very specific — I love it! Altman’s contempt for that whole world would’ve been coruscating (and mildly hypocritical). Some of those actors are second-raters but that’s what you get if you go to Warner Bros. Jagger and Keenan Wynn are great ideas, Vaughn would’ve been scarily apt as Pete Campbell, and that’s two votes for Diane McBain! You need Ted Knight in there somewhere though — Altman’s TV-era mascot!

Now, somebody cast it at Universal circa 1968, with all their borrrrrring young contract players….

Tom, you’re the expert … who should play the new wife, circa 1965-1966? I kind of blew her off but now she’s a major character, apparently. Yvonne Craig comes to mind but she’s not quite right. And don’t say Pamela Tiffin.

Brian, clearly you’re a fan of “Last of the Big Spenders,” as am I. Dick Simmons is a favorite (and was an acquaintance) of mine, and I’ll be writing more about him soon. Wayne Rogers is great; he would’ve been perfect to play one of those junior ad agency weasels.

I dunno about Sam Fuller — that would’ve been a gonzo show — just as the Sam Peckinpah version would’ve been. Among the Four Star gang, probably Geller-Kowalski would’ve had the greatest affinity for Mad Men.

I originally considered Diana Hyland for Betty. Diana guest starred on “Stoney Burke”, and she and Lord didn’ t get along. That could have led to interesting tension in the acting. But I eventually felt Diana didn’t quite have the right quality for Betty.

Martin Landau and Shirley Knight could also have been a fine Don and Betty.

My knowledge of early ’60s telefilm doesn’t hold a candle to any of the folks above, so I can only express my appreciation make piecemeal suggestions…. How about Ralph Bellamy as Duck? (Casting him as Bert Cooper seems a bit cruel, somehow, even though it could work.)

James Garner’s Don Draper would have been … actually, kind of interesting. Hard to see him as an ad man but he could’ve done Don’s fuck-it attitude beautifully, and sold the Dick Whitman backstory in a way that the actual show has (I think) never completely managed.

Meanwhile, I’ve been watching Ironside lately, and boy, is Barbara Anderson a zero, looks notwithstanding. Maybe get Kathie Browne in there instead, for the McGavin package deal.

Well, I stand corrected on my first comment. Forgot how many great actors were hanging around waiting for the big break in the early 1960s. As for the casting in later time frames, Barbara Anderson was actually pretty good substituting for Lynda Day George during the last season of “Mission: Impossible”. So maybe not such a bad choice for Betty. But speaking of Ms. George, how about her and husband Christopher as Betty and Don in the early ’70s version from CBS.

Jack Lord as President John F. Kennedy
Mark Goddard as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
Jan Merlin as Ford Motor Company President/Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara
Will Geer as President Lyndon B. Johnson
Regis Toomey as Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey
Jack Dodson as former Vice President Richard M. Nixon
Andrew Duggan as General Maxwell D. Taylor
George Takei as South Vietnamese Prime Minister, Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky
Edward Asner as Nikita Khrushchev
Lon Chaney, Jr. as Leonid Brezhnev
The Beatles as themselves
Robert DuVall as Zar, a friendly alien

Notable episodes:

“Cyborg” – set in 1959, Don visits the Ford Motor Company to consult on an ad campaign and discovers to his horror that company engineers have replaced Ford president Robert S. McNamara with a cyborg. Guest star: Jan Merlin as Robert S. McNamara.

“Hail To The Chief” – set in 1960, Don and Roger meet with the Democratic candidate for President, the senator from Massachusetts, and his campaign manager brother to discuss an ad campaign for the upcoming election.
Guest stars: Guy Williams as John F. Kennedy, Mark Goddard as Robert F. Kennedy.

“The Deadly Dolls” – set in 1964, puppeteer Professor Multiple pitches a set of light-hearted dolls for an upcoming ad campaign, and one-by-one, replaces almost everyone in the agency with his dolls, which are capable of growing and assuming the staff’s physical, if not their complete mental characteristics. Draper eventually learns that Multiple is but the mouthpiece for a galactic supercomputer, which on an information gathering mission, has inadvertently crashed on Earth, becoming stranded. The machine, through Multiple and his puppet replacements, seeks to forcibly take Sterling Cooper as a new home, as a hermit crab might appropriate a snail shell. Guest star: Vincent Price as Professor Multiple.

“Time Lock” – set in 1966, Draper is timeknapped by silvery aliens and sent to the future where an ordinary looking human named Alpha explains that he wants to drain Draper of his intelligence and will to rebel, and then to add him to his collection of great business leaders. Rumsen sneaks into Draper’s office, where the aliens have set up their time bridge, and is accidentally sent into the future just in time to disrupt Alpha’s efforts to convert Draper. The remainder of the hour is taken up by a seesaw series of escapes and recaptures and Alpha’s attempts to convert Draper into a mindless Zombie. Finally, a wounded Rumsen is able to write a message in blood on a handkerchief and toss it into the time bridge. Soon, a grenade-launcher toting Sterling steps through the time bridge and rescues Draper and Rumsen. Before they leave Alpha’s world, they set explosives that destroy the time bridge seconds after they return to Sterling Cooper.

“The Deadly Amphibians” – set in 1968, Sterling Cooper comes under fire from a sonic cannon leveled by amphibious creatures that have emerged from a subterranean lair, intent on taking command of the world’s oceans. They could care less about the humans, but want Sterling Cooper and its’ nuclear reactor to power their sonic weapon. After much see-saw action and a partial conversion of Harry Crane into a mind-controlled amphibian, Draper retires to his office and concocts a counter-weapon to the amphibian’s sonic oscillator. The invaders are vanquished, their underwater installation blown to smithereens and Crane returned to human form just in time for the end credits.